


How to Befriend a Snape

by SlytherclawBlack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Severus Snape is Bad at Feelings, Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29699523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherclawBlack/pseuds/SlytherclawBlack
Summary: Severus is bad a feelings. I know. What a surprise. Hermione's got this though.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 9
Kudos: 96





	How to Befriend a Snape

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot that I wrote over a year ago but never got around to posting. I'm about start moving all of my work to this site and wanted to start with this.

It started with a whisper but it ended with a bang and Severus Snape is now left wondering just where it all took such a wrong turn. More than a wrong turn really, it seemed to have zigzagged and looped in on itself with a sharp left for good measure. Really, the whole thing could be laid at Grangers' feet. No one told her to try to be his friend. If she would have even bothered asking him he could have told her just what an abysmal failure it would be. But she didn't ask him. She just did whatever it was that she wanted. 

He didn't know that she actually considered him her friend. No one had told him the rules. How can you just befriend someone without making sure that the other person is fully aware of what is happening? The only friend he had ever truly had was Lily and just look at how that turned out. Lily...the reason he now doesn't have a friend that he wasn't even aware of having until she was gone. What a mess. Again, it is all her fault! 

It started with small things. A cup of coffee quietly handed to him when he would arrive in the Great Hall for breakfast. A subscription to a foreign potions journal that started showing up on his desk. His rounds being picked up by the new Arithmancy professor, somehow always on the nights that he really needed the rest. 

Then came the talking. Never before the coffee was given of course, but it came just the same. She started with quiet "hello's" in the morning. Then came the "how are you's" and let's not forget the looks of commiseration after a long day of teaching. 

When he finally started getting used to that she upped the stakes and started dropping off potion ingredients that she just so happened to run across. Just so happened his arse. Did she think he was slow? He knew how hard yeti tears were to come by. She even knitted him a scarf in his house colors. She didn't sign the package but it wasn't hard to figure out who the culprit could be. 

He allowed her to have what she thought were sneaky ways but any first-year Slytherin could have seen through them. Maybe that was a mistake on his part, that he allowed it to continue, but he was really only trying to figure out what she was trying to gain from it all. What could the Princess of Gryffindor truly want with the Bat of the Dungeons? 

Friendship apparently. Damn that word. Friendship. 

That was not the worst to come through. Oh no. That designation laid with the evening teas she forced upon him. If he were being truly honest though, and he did try to be that, they were not completely horrible. She would just show up randomly (and it was random, he tried to plot it out to find any kind of system to it) and order tea for the two of them. Tea that he was sure Hogwarts did not keep in stock. Tea that played to his hidden hedonistic side. 

She didn't chatter or fidget like he thought she would. It was a point in her favor that she had grown out of the annoying habit. No. She would merely sit with him in the silence. A silence that he didn't realize was cold until she wasn't there with him in it. 

Look what she had done! Now he was missing the little mad woman. He had been perfectly happy in his self-imposed solitude until she came and ruined it. 

It started with...talking. He was to blame for that. He must have inhaled some miscreant's poisonous potion fumes because he found his mouth opening one night and asking her what she thought of teaching. Before he could take the words back she was giving him a look of pleased surprise, and then she smiled. She smiled! Maybe it wasn't his fault after all. It was that smile. It wasn't a full-on happy grin but it was a small contented one - just a tiny lift of the lips. She has taken care to hide her smile from him in all the times before. He knew why and it pained him but they hadn't gotten to the apologies yet. That she showed him her smile now disarmed him. 

So now they had conversations during tea. If only it would have ended there. But of course, it didn't. He began to get comfortable with her. They started to talk about things that really mattered. Countless discussions where they began to show the other the hidden ugly things and soft underbelly parts of themselves. 

He gave her too much leeway when it came to him. So when she came to his dungeons on the night of Halloween she was allowed through his wards. Allowed to walk right into his inner sanctum. Allowed to find him pissed out of his mind and ruminating on things that he had been picking apart for longer than she had been alive. 

He mentioned Lily. He may have even mentioned the what might have beens. Then she spoke. 

"If she was a true friend then she would have forgiven you, Severus."

He felt the anger rising like some oily substance in his soul. How dare she? And he told her so. 

"How dare you speak of things that you have no knowledge of?"

If only he would have stopped there. But he didn't. 

He had downed enough Firewhiskey to drown his conscience. Drowned out the voice that would otherwise tell him to 'stop' and 'tread carefully'. There was nothing left of him to talk to except the very worst parts. 

Didn't she understand that Lily was the only good thing he had? He must have told her so because she responded to it. 

"You are more than that. You are brave, loyal, and courageous. That's what you are. Lily didn't give those things to you. You already had them. If she did anything it was to cover those parts up."

"Get. Out."

He told her to leave. If only she would have listened. But she didn't. When has Hermione Granger ever listened? 

"I'm sorry but-"

"No! You know nothing. Nothing! You're just a little girl with big ideas about what is fair and I take great pleasure in informing you that I am not another one of your causes!"

He didn't stop there. There was probably a chance of recovering what they had if he would have. 

"I'm your friend! And friends care about one another. They look out for one another."

Here is where he killed it. 

"Friends? We are not friends, Granger. You are nothing but a bushy-haired annoyance that won't leave me alone. Why would you think that I would care about what you thought? Why would you think that you mattered?"

That's what did it. 

He watched as all the color drained from her face. As she straightened herself. As the occlumency shields, she picked up somewhere slammed into place. 

He shouldn't have said those things but his reason was lost to him. All he was then was one giant and drunk open wound. She was the salt. 

"I am sorry that I have inconvenienced you."

She said it so softly. He would have preferred it if she had yelled. If she had only raged. But that's not what she did. No. She hid everything that made her, her and quietly retreated. 

The worst part was remembering the next morning. Having to relive what he said to her. Going so far as to pull out the Pensieve to watch it happen with all of his faculties engaged. The way that he could see her shatter right before she brought up her blank face. The nothingness on her face looked out of place. Granger was a study in human expressions. She let everything that she was thinking show for anyone to see. And he caused it to disappear. 

There was no more coffee offered. No hellos. No ingredients. He still got the potions journal but he just chalked it up to her soft nature. Or an oversight. 

So now here he is. Missing something that he didn't realize he held. Something that slowly become precious to him. She had become precious. 

It didn't help that Draco came by his classroom and pointed out exactly why he was an idiot. 

"You told her she didn't understand. She does. She's my friend and if you think that one word is the worst that I did to her then you're an idiot. I said that I hoped she died. She found it in her heart to forgive me for everything. There is no comparison here."

Firewhiskey has become his friend tonight. And instead of being filled with thoughts about Lily he is filled with Hermione. Hermione. He never called her by her first name despite how much she asked. He wishes now he would have. He wishes a lot of things. 

His brain sparks onto an idea. Hermione is not Lily. Hermione. Is. Not. Lily. Surely if she forgave the little shit that Draco Malfoy was she could forgive him. He has just enough reason left to realize that he can't put anything into motion until he is sober. Why has it taken him this long to come up with anything? He glared at the Firewhiskey. Mentally patting himself on the back he goes to bed with dreams of plans to come. 

It starts with an offered cup of coffee. Not the Hogwarts swill, thank you very much. No. Imported and full-bodied and something he knows that she loves but will not spend the money to have on a regular basis. He grabs onto hope that she accepts it. 

This gives him the courage to start leaving her books on Arithmancy that she has coveted from his collection on her desk. 

She still doesn't speak to him but she does start to give him considering looks. It's a start. A start that he intends to follow. 

His next offering makes him the most nervous. If he miscalculated then this will just make him look like a fool. He doesn't have the courage to hand it to her himself so he makes use of the owlery and hopes that this is enough. As he watches the vial of all his favorite memories of her fly away he is momentarily overcome with panic. 

When the wild curls appear in his classroom and come flying at him at a frightening speed it takes everything in him to brace himself for impact. 

He knows she is saying something but can't make out whatever it is because she has attached herself to his person like a limpet. There are no signs of her letting go any time soon. Not that he minds. It's this embrace that causes his mind to calm. 

No. Severus Snape doesn't mind at all. He brings his hands up to hold her tightly to him just in case she comes to her senses. He isn't ready to let her go yet. He buries one hand in her hair and the other locks in place at the small of her back. 

She fits just under his chin perfectly. Why had he not noticed before? Well, he never gave her leave to hug him before. He regrets that now. She feels lovely. 

When they finally let go of one another just enough to look at each other in the eye he is gratified to see that all of her emotions are in play again. 

Maybe he was to blame after all. 

"You didn't have to do that."

"What? Act like an arse? Lose my best friend?" 

Her face shows shock at his acknowledgment and only a small part of him is happy about it. A large part of himself is chagrined that she is so unsure of where they are. What they are. 

What they could be. 

He's had enough of being the angry man. Enough of being closed off from everyone. She managed to teach him some things along the way, he just didn't realize what those things were until he broke it. 

"Hermione."

This look of shock was much more pronounced. Dammit, all. He would have to put in the effort to get her used to this. 

"Hermione, I'm sorry."

And there. Right there was his smile. 

"I forgive you."

He must have shown her a look of shock of his own because she began to laugh. Not at him really. It was just a joyful sound. A contented sound. What hope must sound like. 

"Friends, then?"

He is quite proud of the fact that he didn't even grit his teeth when he said it. Not even a clench. 

"Well, about that… I may have misled you a bit. I wasn't just trying to be your friend."

What? Not his friend? All of the thoughts he had in her favor were burning to ash in front of him. 

"Wait! Don't do that, please. Just listen."

Reminding himself that nothing good ever comes from him blowing up he just manages to give her a nod as he sets her away from him. It's the best he can do. It's not like he has had a lot of practice with this. 

He notices a blush creeping up her neck and to her high cheekbones. This could actually be interesting. She takes a deep breath and then softly speaks.

"I wasn't trying to be your friend. I was trying to, well I was, I was, trying to woo you."

Oh. Interesting indeed. 

Her eyes are aimed at his chest like she can't bear to see his reaction to her words. He imagines it had taken most of her famous courage to say the words so he takes mercy on her. 

"I think I rather liked being wooed."


End file.
